You are plugged into social media at al times but you don’t feel productive or feel comfortable going offline.

You don’t enjoy interacting with social media. It starts to feel like just another thing you must do each day.

You are no longer being social in your interactions. Your attitude may be changing and your responses may be rude or abrupt.

You are recycling content and not using your creativity to make new content.

You feel stressed by social media and feel like you “need” to be online so you don’t miss anything.

You decide to just leave social media. you don’t respond to messages and people just start ignoring you.

If you use social media for work, you are working at all times on your channels and it begins to disrupt you personal life. (what personal life? It all belongs to social media.)

In the article liked above, Lina found popularity through social media and then social media took over her life. She lost balance.

As an artist who actively uses social media and who suggests that artists have social media profiles, I don’t agree with deleting accounts even when you are starting to feel burnout. Instead, I would suggest that artists who are unable to keep their lives balanced use social media tools which keep their accounts but don’t require them to spend time on the sites.

Hootsuite, just announced yesterday that they are now providing their services for Instagram. By using hootsuite, artists can post to their social media accounts without having to be on each site at all times.

Tools like Hootsuite work well for busy artists or artists like Lina who find social media taking over their lives.

The life of an artist can be isolating and social media provides an opportunity to connect and get instant gratification (like a sugar or caffeine blast.) The problem with many social media sites is that you never meet the people who are liking your content and artists who are on social media are interacting with an idea of the world but not the world they live in.

To maintain a balance, artists can pick and choose what social media channels work for them and decide why they are using those channels (for work, personal, inspiration).

Setting parameters on how you use social media is also helpful. For Munich Artists, we focus on sharing content from artists we meet and who live around Munich, Germany. Our goal is to have artists interact and get to know each other’s work. We want a global platform that reaches viewers around the world but we want the artists to be local so they can meet for a cup of coffee or collaborate together in person in Munich, Germany not just in the virtual world.

Munich Artists avoids social media platforms that artists do not use. We understand that artists are visual and we want to share information that helps them in the limited time they have to access social media. We do not ask artists to join more social media sites or change their routines.

Munich Artists works for Munich Artists. We use social media to promote works by Bavarian artists that show the zeitgeist of the city.

One way we do this is by offering Munich Artists Challenges. Through artists challenges, artists can share artwork online but also meet other artists offline to work together or just nurture their artistic practice. Munich Artists has been developing a solid sense of community which isn’t just a virtual meaningless connection demonstrated by a thumbs up. We care about the artists in Munich and want them to meet each other, connect and be inspired.

Other tips to help avoid burnout:

Turn off notifications on your phone. Schedule a time to visit the site and interact with people who leave messages. Let people know your schedule so they don’t get upset if you are not answering fast enough. Once or twice a day is enough, you don’t need your phone telling you when to visit.

Plan ahead what you are going to post. For Munich artists, we decided to share photographs from our art challenges on our feed along with photos from events and then different challenges on instagram. We currently are doing a #100daychallenge because it sounded like a great way to share 100 quotes with our followers while sharing photographs and seeing what our followers liked seeing.

Be Picky about what you share. I would love to share with you every funny thing that happens to me during the day but quite a bit isn’t appropriate for the Munich Artists feed. Photos of my children, my lunch or my feet rarely appear unless it applies to a quote or the content I’m sharing.

Don’t follow people just because they follow you. Keep your network useful. Social media is social and if you are connecting with people outside of your network you are making it more difficult for you to feel a connection.

Avoid Twitter and social media sites that are not curated. Journalists are the exception to this tip. Most artists do not need to access the world to create their artwork and twitter is not the go to social media for many artists or collectors. Go ahead and share your posts to twitter but avoid entering the platform unless you are looking for an overwhelming about of content not pertinent to your life or your work.

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One comment

Good post! In my opinion, most posts should come with a picture, and as you mentioned the content is important too.
With regards to keeping my network useful, I don’t mind following people just because they follow me. Maybe, I think so because I am not a facebooker, and consequently I don’t like Twitter or Instagram. I share opinion through Linkedin and Blogspot (blacknight2.blogspot.it/).